Mod Rewrite redirect URL with query string to pretty url

Solution 1:

You need to do a check that the old URL with the php in it is actually being requested by matching against %{THE_REQUEST}, otherwise it'll redirect loop forever (e.g. user goes to team.php, serve redirects to teams, browser requests teams, server rewrites as teams.php, server sees "teams.php" and redirects to teams, browser requests teams, server rewrites as teams.php, etc. etc.)

RewriteEngine On

# redirect when the user actually requests for teams.php
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /teams\.php\?league=([^&]+)&team=([^&]+)&year=([^&]+)&tab=([^\ ]+)
RewriteRule ^teams\.php$ /teams/%1/%2/%3/%4? [R=301,L]

# internally rewrite any /teams/ URI
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^(css|js|img)/
RewriteRule ^teams/([^/]*)/([^/]*)/([^/]*)/([^/]*)$ teams.php?league=$1&team=$2&year=$3&tab=$4 [L]